March, 2022
One of the new things I started in February, mid-February to be exact, is working with an on-line community through the 12 week Artist Way program. This one is organized by Meredith Hite-Estevez who works under the Lumina Arts Foundation brand and has a podcast called Artists for Joy.
I’ve read the book before and maybe mentally played with the exercises, but never really committed to using it as a workbook and taking it seriously, week by week, for twelve weeks. We will see how it goes, but it is nice to have a weekly check in with a community and as someone with life coach training, Meredith seems to have a pretty good handle on how to faciitate. Morning pages are somehting I theoretically admire but wonder if I will keep up, and breakout rooms on line are always hit or miss, but my first one was a hit, so I will “keep coming back”, or at least that’s how it feels like now.
March, 2022
There were a bunch of February adventures. The real treat was a last minute decision to hit the road and head to Tucson for a winter break – sunshine and temperatures in the 70s were a nice change from a Chicago winter, even for just a week. Truth is, we would have stayed longer but the amazing house we found was only available by a fluke. We know something now for sure – we live in a high-rise, which is kind of like living in a hotel, so the big treat for vacation is a house with a backyard. So happy we found this one, but so sad to find out we would be the last renters ever – the homeowners were moving in themselves.
Every since I have be overly-obsessied with finding an option for next year. We aren’t likely to be full-on snowbirds, but we are flirting hard with the idea of February in the desert.
March, 2022
I’ve meditated in lots of different places – more hotel rooms than I can count – but my favorite nest ever is the place where I sit most days at home in Chicago.
My husband and I have kind of an unusual living situation – we have two condos in the same building downtown right at the lakefront. In one, we sleep and entertain and spend Sunday mornings reading the paper and he spends his days in his office. The other is my daytime domain – my office, my art studio, my main prep kitchen, and my meditation corner. That’s it in the picture you see. I don’t even know what you call this chair – it spins, it’s nice and deep, and it’s got a bunch of pillows to tuck in here and there. I keep a few things on the table next to me, not al altar exactly, just little symbols that mean something to me. There’s a candle – I don’t light it, but I can smell it and something about that smell sets the mood for me.
There are several malas, prayer beads or necklaces depending on your point of view. You’ve seen them before, they are kind of boho-fashion, but they also have a long history, with meaning to the number of beads and the way they are sectioned off. I guess you could say that they are the Eastern religion corollary to rosary beads for Catholics. Anyway, for me they don’t have any specific religious meaning, they are something nice to hold on to – bringing in that sense of touch. I’ll tell you another thing, one of my personal themes is the idea of uniting left brain and right brain, art and commerce, intellect and intuition, so looping that string of beads around both hands, uniting them, has personal symbolism for me.
And yes, there are crystals – selenite, a gift from a friend, and a few others I’ve been gifted along the way. I’m not an expert in crystals, and I don’t spend much time thinking about whether or not they have attributes or powers. I do know that the selenite is said to clear negative energy, and the idea of something from the earth supports the idea of being grounded, and both of those concepts appeal to me.
So, all together, these symbols may not make magic themselves but they lend meaning and are helpful reminders of what I want for myself.
February, 2022
I get great creative insights when I meditate. That sounds like a good thing, and for the most part it is, but the challenge is what to do with them when they come around. Meditation wisdom says don’t hang on to your thoughts, let them pass by like a feather floating down a stream. But what if they are really amazing ideas? Do you keep a notepad nearby and just really, really quickly jot down a few key words so you don’t lose the thread forever? That feels like breaking the rules, somehow, but what if that burst of inspiration is really important, and what if the rest of my sit is lost anyway to worrying about whether or not I’ll remember it?
If I find myself caught in the idea that silently, constantly repeating the idea to myself to lock it in and can’t break out of it, once in a great while I’ll hit the record button on whatever device is nearby and just record a fragment or two. That seems a little less disruptive than stopping to write something down.
For the most part, I’ve decided to trust. After all, meditation is kind of an exercise in trust anyway. I try to trust that the really important stuff will resurface, maybe in an even better, refined version of itself. And like many of my meditation experiences, I am often frustrated in the moment but gratified in the end.
January, 2022
Well, there weren’t any acual journeys this January, not of the road trip variety anyway, but there were lots of artistic journeys.
This picture is from a weekly assignment with the ongoing Paper Pals Collage Club with Lucie Duclos and the Winslow Art Center, a great way to practice composition every week and meet with like-minded people once a month. They have so many other great course to choose from, I’m really impressed. Earlier in the month I made a quick video flipping through my sketchbook of weekly 2021 assignments. This is a link to watch it on Vimeo
Then, there were workshops with Valerie Goodwin (Haiku Maps) and Erin Fletcher (The Shrigley bookbinding structure), as well as my Handmade Book Club and Coloricombo 2022 challenges, and a bunch of other little projects that moved forward as well.
I feel like I put in a lot of miles without leaving home at all.
